PRESS RELEASE ON THE PRINCIPLED POSITION
AND STAND OF THE CONSULTATIVE AND COORDINATING COMMITTEE-CCC OF BAHR AL GHAZAL
REGION ON THE IGAD NEGOTIATIONS PROCESS-25TH JUNE, 2003.

STATEMENT BY THE CITIZENS OF

BAHR EL GHAZAL IN KENYA(17th June, 2003)

We, the undersigned citizens of Bahr El Ghazal Region of South Sudan resident
in Kenya, joined by a number of our compatriots from elsewhere in the Diaspora,
who are currently visiting Kenya, attended a meeting convened by Bahr El Ghazal
Consultative And Coordinating Committee (C.C.C), in Nairobi on Tuesday 17th
June 2003.The meeting conferred on the state of South Sudan politics and liberation
struggle. Particularly the state of the current peace negotiations being undertaken
by the Inter-governmental Authority for Development (IGAD). The IGAD is assisted
by a consortium of facilitators from the international community. Our meeting
resolved, first of all, to note strongly that the 20th July Machakos Peace Protocol
of the said negotiations, had endorsed the right of the people of South Sudan
to self-determination.

However, we wish to warn the people of South Sudan that the IGAD peace process
is stalled due to disagreement on a number of issues and the intervention of
other regional powers like Egypt, the Arab League and all Arab countries. These
countries had historically been responsible for denying the people of the South
the expression of their political aspiration. As a result, we fear that self-determination
is being turned into an instrument of reaching a peace agreement between the
negotiating parties at the peace process at Machakos that may not be carried
out in the end. South Sudan has a living example in the 1953 Cairo Agreement,
which had embodied self- determination. This determination was in the end brushed
aside and a resolution declaring Sudan an independent country issued inside
a parliament that was not elected for that purpose.

Hence, any negotiations must not only achieve agreement, and not any agreement
for that matter this time round, but achieve real, just and lasting peace. For
the people of South Sudan, real and genuine peace would mean a stabilized, regularized,
durable, guaranteed and a lasting and ensured security for our people. We don?t
have to go for prolonged and tactical cease-fires, which in the end will enable
the Arabs to rebuild their depleted army, exploit the oil of the South, rebuild
a shattered economy, surround and isolate South Sudan diplomatically etc. in
the rest of Africa and elsewhere in the world. Our people would equally and
justifiably demand a sustainable social, economical, cultural, aesthetic, ideational
and guarantee of their Africanness and traditions. And not to mention their
value systems, and historical philosophical heritage. Besides, to overcome social
backwardness and an acute economic underdevelopments and their structures underlines,
the lo! gical conclusion that such an issue cannot be left in the hands of those
who preach and ask for being allowed to experiment on the so called attraction
to unity of Sudan. Hence, the people of South Sudan will insist and must get
a socio-economic transformation model that will create an entirely new society.
That society will be free from domination, subjugation, oppression, suppression,
exploitation, continuous slavery, genocide and forcible acculturation, Islamicisation
and all the other measures that go with foreign occupation.

The pattern of that behavior has not changed as far as North Sudan is concerned.
The abrogation in May 1983, of the 1972 Addis Ababa Agreement is a glaring example
of this political immorality by North Sudan. That Agreement had at least ended
17 years of war between South Sudan and North Sudan. This bitter experience
should also serve as a very good reminder at this juncture in which South Sudan
seems to being railroaded again into another peace agreement without the fullest
and broadest participation and or consultation with its people!

We should like to also add that for any process and practice of self-determination
to be solid and concrete, the basic political and legal modalities, protocols,
legal perquisites and laws, general agreements of understanding and such understandings
have, to firmly, be put in place. Furthermore, these basic requirements which
have until now been the practice and the norm under UN Conventions, OAU or AU
Charters, the Algiers Declaration of 1976, among others issues. These should
be applied to the letter and spirit when it comes to the implementation of self-determination
process. The later must not only underpin such an implementation but call into
existence all the other various protocols under international law for the recognition
of oppressed and occupied people?s. to self-determination. Therefore, the condition
and process of the said self-determination, should follow to the letter the
basic need to consult with the population being oppressed and occupied. ! It
isn?t the case at the moment regrettably.

And at the utmost that process must be supervised internationally and with the
strong support of civil society, Church, professionals and the civil population
at large in South Sudan. We cite the precedents of Namibia, East Timor, Eritrea,
Sierra Leone etc. The methodology followed in the IGAD format of negotiations
which granted to Sudan the false claims it made before the mediators, and which
claims assert that South Sudan and Northern Sudan have always been one united
country historically is unsubstantiated, false and therefore null and void.

1. The People?s Right of Self-Determination:

(a) Article 1 of the UN Charter 1945, stipulates that the colonized
societies in Asia, Africa and Latin America should be entitled for self-determination
in order to decide their destiny to independence. This article by the UN was
adopted to cater for "decolonisation". It served its purpose when
UN supported independence uprisings in Africa and elsewhere in the world in
1950s and which led to all these colonials who had been occupied earlier on
regaining their countries and freedoms. This principle was latter adopted by
UN under its Human Rights Protocol on the matter.

The UN Economic and Social Covenant (ECOSOC) assisted by UN Commission for Human
Rights adopted three generations of human rights conventions/articles:

(i) International Covenant for Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR);

(ii) International Covenant for Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights (ICESCR); and People?s Right and self-determination.

Under the UN Charter and the Human Rights Covenant, the right
of people?s to self-determination is defined as:

(a) Population

(b) Geographical territory occupied by the population.

(c) Government ruling that territory. In the case of the South,
we have had our various indigenous rulers running sub-ethnic or ethnic and tribal
polities up to 1898 (in fact the British /Egypt control of the South Sudan became
effective only in 1928 - and even then very tenuously administered by the British
under the Close District Ordinance Proclamation). Yet the territory known as
South Sudan was governed separately from 1898 -1956 or then known as the Condominium
Colonial Government.

The Sudan government argument that South Sudan and North Sudan where united
under the ruling of 1947 Juba Conference is false and an act of forgery. The
said Conference was an Administrative Consultative Conference between the British
and its local administrators and chiefs. These people were not elected by the
people of South Sudan. Therefore, they the chiefs and clerks that is, couldn?t
possibly have been legitimate representatives of the political views and stand
of the South Sudan. Besides, it was not a forum for any discussion, on self-determination,
let alone making decision on this fateful issue. In fact the South Sudan was
officially annexed yet illegally to North Sudan as a result of the Juba 1947
Administrative Conference. Neither was South Sudan represented in the February
1953 Cairo Conference on self-determination for Northern Sudan. Once the Condominium
Government left in 1956 South Sudan passed under internal colonialism of North
Sudan.

As from 1972 to 1983, South Sudan gained some sort of manifest Self-government
following the "Addis Ababa Agreement" and made organic by a Self-government
Act (as some sort of constitution). However this was but in name only. The same
Self-government Act some ten years down the road was once more abrogated by
North Sudan thus dissolving the government of South Sudan. South Sudan, thereafter
felt it was being put under a second round of internal colonialism by the Arab
North. South Sudan rejected the Arab or Khartoum colonial hegemony and went
to war in 1983.

The SPLA liberated areas of our land (estimated as over 80%) is controlled by
a de facto government and administered by the SPLM. The control and governance
of the territory and population of South Sudan is a fact. That administration
is continuous and uninterrupted for the last 21 years. This state of affairs
proves that South Sudan is qualified under the UN definition of the right of
people to self- determination: territorial integrity, population and government.

The process leading to referendum and decision should then have been the responsibility
of UN Security Council. Under its Article and mandate dealing with International
Peace and Security. The recent examples are: Namibia, Eritrea, East Timor and
the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq in early 1990s (see UN Charter and Human Rights
Covenants for correct definitions of the Articles dealing with the laws in each
case. Also see the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1946).

2. The national identity of Sudan, so-called, is mostly contentious. Sudan is
an African country and a country to which South Sudan was not united to through
the process and act of self-determination according to the historical facts
recounted above. Sudan therefore must remain an African country during the six-year
interim period. In this period the UN must grant peace keeping forces along
latitude 120. The presence of UN forces will ensure the separation of the armies,
SPLA and Khartoum?s, until the final outcome of referendum.

3. As for the Land of the territory called South Sudan, the
ownership is vested on the population that are its occupants since time immemorial.
Our Land was never occupied by foreigners until 1898. In that year, it was only
the King of England, King George the vi who became its proprietor from 1898
-1956. As from 1956 to the date we are writing, the Sudan, so called, never
formulated a Constitution that was accepted by South Sudan. The claim that the
Khartoum Government enjoys sovereignty over the Land of South Sudan is, therefore,
historically and constitutionally false and unfounded. Khartoum, has all these
years attempted and failed by political deception and falsehood to Marshall
support and stand the false claims unabashedly.

The International Court of Justice decisions to settle land disputes in the
past in different parts of the world provide several examples. Those that are
available to us are e.g. the case between France and Mexico or Aborigine cases
and the Australian Government or the case between Morocco and Western Sahara
(Details are found in the relevant UN documentation on the subject and many
relevant law journals or documentation on the same in any library). Therefore
the Sudan or Khartoum government has no right to claim a right of ownership
over the minerals found above or under the land of South Sudan. To persist,
insist and actually exploit the minerals of the South by force of arms is tantamount
to armed robbery and theft.

4. Equitable power and resources sharing in the context of our
argument above become irrelevant within the process of right to self-determination
implementation over the historical territory of South Sudan. Besides sharing
of organic state power and resources within the fundamental understanding of
the basic differences between national state power and one of its none-state
regional territory, and which territory will exist and function concretely and
operate as a local autonomous body does not make serious sense. Perhaps to the
Apostles and converts of "New Sudan cum NDA and political Islam. Because
the Central State will definitely due to its monopoly of organic national state
power can only delegate, allocate, devolve etc. inorganic power and resources
to the lower political units. Its only the out come of the referendum, and all
of us should wait, that will determine whether we share our territory and the
wealth (e.g petroleum) with a foreign occupier like! Khartoum. Any such political
game insisted upon by the Arabs to insist that South Sudan and North Sudan are
one country, and blindly endorsed by some self-seeking South Sudanese, should
be disallowed by the mediators on the ground of commonsense and irrefutable
historical facts for the time being.

It can only be discussed if South Sudan, it decide on its free will to sign
or accept an agreement to unite with North Sudan. And in that event can only
be done under an agreed mutual constitution acceptable to both parties. There
is no such constitution as of present in order to determine the so-called shares
of resources or over property of South Sudan population. Hence we reject the
false claims of Khartoum and its negligible in number unionists in South Sudan
in the IGAD Negotiations forum as being legally and constitutionally groundless.

We are further suspicious of the manner in which the leader of the movement
that is supposedly negotiating on behalf of South Sudan has carried himself
over the last few months in the international arena over the peace process.
The leader of the SPLM/A creates a public impression around the world that self-
determination is only an instrument of ensuring that the unity of Sudan will
be the outcome of a referendum on self-determination when and if it is undertaken.
The leader of the SPLM/A has totally failed over 21 years of his leadership
of our people to clearly articulate the political aspiration of the people of
South Sudan. He now goes around the world and the Region only emphasizing his
"New Sudan". That gentleman forgets on connivance and conveyance ground
that our freedom fighters, who took up arms to fight for the political aspiration
of their people have been misled into believing that the "New Sudan"
agenda of their leader is one and the same thing a! s the right of the people
to self-determination.

Furthermore, the negotiating tactics of the leader of the SPLM/A show that these
tactics are aimed at putting the IGAD peace process at risk and with it the
right of self-determination which that process now embodies. And yet, this is
the man the international community seem to want to make solely in charge of
the future of our country and people.

If the IGAD peace process is to ensure that the right of South Sudan to self-determination
will be carried out at the end of the interim period, then we appeal to the
IGAD mediators to ensure that the international community stays with this process
until it is finally carried out. The implementation of whatever the government
of Sudan agrees to undertake as measures to "make unity attract" to
the South need to be internationally monitored throughout the entire interim
period. The security arrangements for South Sudan, whatever they may be, need
to be closely watched. Indeed, as a matter of confidence building between South
Sudan and North Sudan, these security measures need to be internationally monitored.

More importantly, we appeal to the international community to ensure that the
government that will begin the implementation of the interim period in South
Sudan is a coalition government that will include all the armed groups of South
Sudanese. Without that, the IGAD peace mediators and facilitators will be seen
as only empowering one military organization in South Sudan, enabling it to
repress others that do not agree with it.

Furthermore, we appeal to the IGAD peace mediators to ensure that whatever government
that begins the long interim period which is now set to more that six years
for South Sudan will be replaced by an elected government at the end of the
first two years of that period. This will provide greater political transparency
and will ensure that the government of South Sudan that will supervise and conduct
the referendum on self -determination is mandated by the electorate of the South
Sudan.

Finally, but not the least, we appeal to our brethren and compatriots from Equatoria
and Upper Nile, to join us in closing our ranks in unity of purpose to further
the cause of the liberation and freedom of our people, whatever the outcome
of the current IGAD peace process may bring. No any determined people to be
free have ever failed. So, our people will finally be freed by their own determination.
So, purposive unity remains the central goal of our people.

In conclusion, we wish to hail the gallant struggle put up by our fighting men
and women of the SPLA during the difficult last 21 years of this most bloody
of civil wars. We salute the heroism of our freedom fighters. Whatever the outcome
of the current peace process, it would not have been possible even to sit down
at the negotiating table with North Sudan without the military heroism of the
SPLA freedom fighters. We salute them on behalf and in the name of our people.

To the other armed groups in South Sudan, we would like to say that whatever
forced you into what we know and appreciate as a difficult choice, you remain
South Sudanese. Your responsibilities towards your country and people are equal
to those of any citizen else. We appeal to you to close ranks with your compatriots
in unity of purpose and to spare our people any further loss of blood and. This
achieved,we can all unite to rebuild the shattered lives of what is left of
our people after this bloody long civil war. South Sudan has had more than a
lion share in the loss of so many millions of lives of our people.

We also wish to appeal to the IGAD negotiators to find a credible, equitable,
just and durable peace with honour to our kith and kin, the African people of
the Nuba Mountains, the Funj and Darfur.